Can Easter be more than the church’s self-congratulatory triumphalism?

Last updated on: April 16, 2017 at 3:57 pm by Morgan Guyton

Can Easter be more than the church’s self-congratulatory triumphalism? 2017-04-16T15:57:58-05:00 Morgan Guyton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’ve never known what to make of Easter. For evangelicals, the big day is Good Friday, when Jesus dies for our sins so we can avoid being tortured forever in hell. Easter is like the confirmation email that the payment went through. Since I’ve developed a more complicated understanding of the cross, it seems important to wrestle with the meaning of Easter.

We visited a large evangelical United Methodist church at the beach this morning. The pastor quoted NT Wright several times in his sermon, which kicked off his sermon series REVOLUTION in which the EVOL had backwards letters in a different color in the bulletin so you could see that it was LOVE backwards. I haven’t read Wright’s new book about the love revolution that Jesus started, but I’m presuming that’s what inspired the sermon series. The sermon was mostly the standard evangelical message about the four spiritual laws and Jesus’ penal substitution on the cross.

The pastor basically had two things to say about Jesus’ resurrection: 1) If he hadn’t been resurrected, we never would have known that he died for our sins. 2) He started a “revolution” that resulted in all the glorious achievements of Western Civilization like charity, hospitals, libraries, and a lot of other things that never would have existed otherwise (because the brown people in other cultures all over the world never knew how to take care of their sick and poor until we sent missionaries to teach them about Jesus).

That didn’t sit well with me. I can’t celebrate Easter if Easter is nothing more than the self-congratulatory triumphalism of European Christendom. I’m not sure what to do with our checkered history. Because centuries of slavery, genocide, and imperial conquest were justified by a genuine sense of religious superiority. And these sins have not been accounted for by the church. We uncritically use the same theology that inspired our ancestors to dehumanize the other. I wrote a seminary term paper on the 16th century Spanish theologian Juan Gines de Sepulveda who told his king that it was his duty according to Jesus’ Great Commission to enslave and “Christianize” the natives of the Americas.

A basic point of Christian orthodoxy is that Jesus accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished through his cross and resurrection. All that’s left for us to do as Christians today is to bear witness to what has already been achieved. If I’d never written that term paper on Sepulveda, I might be able to do that. I might be able to squint my eyes shut, throw my hands up in the air, and sing Chris Tomlin with all the earnestness I can muster.

I realize I’m supposed to believe that Jesus won decisively and completely on the original Easter morning, but I’m not sure that Jesus has all the way won yet. I think Christianity loses something essential to its nature when it becomes the religion of people who have already won, of kings who are crowned by bishops. It’s kind of like Star Wars, where the good guys can only be the Rebel Alliance or the Resistance. If they ever win and take over the Empire they were trying to beat, then they lose everything by having won. Whatever Easter is, it cannot be the self-congratulatory triumphalism of the white church. That’s utterly alien to what it looks like in the Bible.

Easter happens to a woman who thought everything was lost until she ran into a gardener with a strange familiar twinkle in his eye. Easter happens to the followers of a failed movement who are hiding from the authorities in a locked room when suddenly their fallen leader materializes in their midst. Easter happens on a beach at dawn where a coward is reestablished as a leader. My favorite line from the original Easter is John 21:12: “Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”

That’s the Jesus I worship. He’s a mysterious figure who doesn’t look like the Italian model I’ve seen in all the paintings, but when I see him, something about him will say it’s the Lord. He’s far outside the pomp and circumstance of the triumphalist churches who have found all the best practices to capture and retain visitors. He’s wandering around cemetery gardens to comfort the bereaved and cooking breakfast on mostly abandoned beaches for fishermen who didn’t get Easter Sunday off. If the biblical stories of Jesus’ resurrection are any indication, I think Jesus spends his Easter with people who have not won yet.

I’m not sure Easter has good news for people who are already satisfied with the world the way it is. If it’s actually God’s confirmation email that those of us who are winning in this life will keep on winning in the next one, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it. One of my favorite lines in Revelation is when God says, “Behold I am making all things new!” That makes me want to believe that Easter keeps happening, that Jesus cannot be conquered by his church any more than he could be conquered by the grave. I want to believe that Jesus will never stop astonishing the people who think they already know the story backwards and forwards. I pray that he will heal me of my cynicism so that I too can be astonished by Easter.

Previous Post

April 14, 2017

Seven ways that Jesus died for our sins

Next Post

April 18, 2017 Why I wish Donald Trump would read my book

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Beauty Will Save the World Bible Big Picture: Ephesians Bloggers Book Christian salvation and the Beautitudes Culture Daily Office Danceable Homiletics Deadly Sins Deep Roots: Genesis Devotions Dominican Republic May 2011 El Principio Misericordia (The Mercy Principle) Five verses God tattooed on my heart Fundraising FutureGospel Good Biblical Words Henri Nouwen Interview Jennings' Christian Imagination Jesus inside the beltway Jesus Is My Candidate Jesus vs the Pharisees Jesus vs. Plato Journey to Eternity Looking Back on 2012 Love Actually Monday Merton Monday Merton Music Occupy the manger On Earth As It Is In Heaven Original Sin Podcast Poetry Politics Prayer Psalm 119 Radical Jesus 101 Reviews Sermon on the Mount Sermons Spanish Bible study Special Series Spiritual but not religious Synchroblog Theology Things that made me think Thomas a Kempis Ugliness Into Beauty Uncategorized Viaje Dominicano 2013 Walking in the Valley (Lent) Welcome: It's More than a Mat Wild Goose 2013 Wrestling

Select a Month March 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 April 2021 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which minor prophet foretells the coming of Elijah before the day of the Lord?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Malachi Obadiah Haggai Joel